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The program will not allow students to earn an M.I.T. degree. Instead, those who are able to exhibit a mastery of the subjects taught on the platform will receive an official certificate of completion. The certificate will obviously not carry the weight of a traditional M.I.T. diploma, but it will provide an incentive to finish the online material. According to the New York Times, in order to prevent confusion, the certificate will be a credential bearing the distinct name of a new not-for-profit body that will be created within M.I.T.

The new online platform will look to build upon the decade-long success of the university’s original free online platform, OpenCourseWare (OCW), which has been used by over 100 million students and contains course material for roughly 2,100 classes. The new M.I.T.x online program will not compete with OCW in the number of courses that it offers. However, the program will offer students a greater interactive experience.

Students using the program will be able to communicate with their peers through student-to-student discussions, allowing them an opportunity to ask questions or simply brainstorm with others, while also being able to access online laboratories and self-assessments. In the future, students and faculty will be able to control which classes will be available on the system based on their interests, creating a personalized education setting.

M.I.T.x represents the next logical evolution in the mushrooming business of free online education by giving students an interactive experience as opposed to a simple videotaped lecture. Academic Earth (picked by Time Magazine as one of the 50 best websites of 2009) has cornered the market on free online education by making a smorgasbord of online course content – from prestigious universities such as Stanford and Princeton – accessible and free to anyone in the world. Users on Academic Earth can watch lectures from some of the brightest minds our universities have to offer from the comfort of their own computer screen. However, that is all they can do: watch. Khan Academy, another notable online education site, offers a largely free interactive experience to its users through assessments and exercises, but it limits itself to K-12 education. By contrast, M.I.T.x will combine the interactivity of the Khan Academy with the collegiate focus of Academic Earth, while drawing primarily from M.I.T.’s advanced course material.

“M.I.T. has long believed that anyone in the world with the motivation and ability to engage M.I.T. coursework should have the opportunity to attain the best M.I.T.-based educational experience that Internet technology enables,” said M.I.T. President Susan Hockfield in the university’s press release.

According to the university, residential M.I.T. students can expect to use M.I.T.x in a different way than online-only students. For instance, the program will be used to augment on-campus course work by expanding upon what students learn in class (faculty and students will determine how to incorporate the program into their courses). The university intends to run the two programs simultaneously with no reduction in OCW offerings.

According to the New York Times, access to the software will be free. However, there will most likely be an “affordable” charge, not yet determined, for a credential. The program will also save individuals from the rigors of the cutthroat M.I.T. admissions process, as online-only students will not have to be enrolled in the prestigious, yet expensive, university to access its online teaching resources.

Those champing at the bit to dive into M.I.T.x will have to wait, as the university doesn’t plan to launch a prototype of the platform until the spring of 2012. According to M.I.T. Provost L. Rafael Reif and Anant Agarwal, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, the prototype might include only one course, but it would quickly expand to include many more courses.

Once launched, M.I.T. officials expect the M.I.T.x platform to be a giant hit amongst other universities looking to create or expand upon their online course materials. “Creating an open learning infrastructure will enable other communities of developers to contribute to it, thereby making it self-sustaining,” said Agarwal in the M.I.T. press release.

Whether M.I.T.x will directly threaten the margins at for-profit online universities, such as the University of Phoenix, APUS, or DeVry remains to be seen. But as M.I.T.x starts to provide many of the salient virtues of for-profit online colleges, such as a robust learning management systems and real-time virtual interaction, these publicly traded education companies might have to lower fees in order to compete with M.I.T.x’s compelling free price. In addition, the success of M.I.T.x, OCW, and Academic Earth may push dramatic technological innovation at for-profits, so that they can maintain a unique selling proposition versus their free competitors. Moreover, as the rapidly growing number of what are termed “self educators” choose free college education, a cottage industry of social media support services might evolve to bring them together for free in-person study and help sessions.

Let me know what you think in the Comments area below. Moreover, feel free to track me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Forbes to receive regular dispatches from the front lines of global education. I am also launching email newsletters on Education, Politics, Culture, and Travel. In addition to summaries and article links, Crotty Newsletter subscribers will receive breaking and market-making news before anyone else. My “Crotty on Education” newsletter, in particular, will include links to videos and podcasts by experts in the field, high-level research reports, plus the invaluable Crotty on Education Stock Index. You can subscribe to Crotty Newsletters here: www.jamescrotty.com/newsletter.html

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This is a great idea for poor geniuses. Or MIT grads that want free graduate courses. Matthew is correct. You either have a 130 IQ and work you tail off, or have a 145 IQ or better and have some free time for these things if MIT is being true to the level of course work.

And the points below are also correct, people that are that intelligent may learn in less structured ways. There is now so much information available on the internet, that you can pick up worlds of information unavailable 15 years ago if you know what you are looking for.

That being said, if you can hack an MIT professor looking over your shoulder, and they are being true to the expectations of the coursework, that pedigree is not a bad thing.

One thing I would add here is that free online courses are all well and good *if you have cheap/free access to the internet* and there are many who simply don’t – even in some parts of the USA and mainland Europe – here in the UK fortunately we still have enough public libraries with free access and very few UK citizens (if any) wouldn’t be able to make use of them if they chose to do so.

There are so many free places to get Internet access in the U.S. Not perfect, but I have never encountered even one student in my experience who didn’t have access via the library or other means. But good point, nonetheless.

Thanks :) Though one “student” ? What about someone say in their late 50′s who’s had no formal education mainly due to a disadvantaged family life or mental illness in their teenage years but who nevertheless is intelligent, and who lives in a trailer park or a really deprived ‘hood ? Another issue of course is that many will simply not be aware of the possibility of such formalised free education – I mean such information also needs to be disseminated in ways such that the most disadvantaged become aware – even say to a homeless person living in charity shelters etc. because (as you say) there is free internet access for all at least in some areas.

If someone hasn’t had full time employment for years, woe certainly is them. Are ALL “corporate recruiters” (resume jockeys) radical libertarians? These people were/are probably spending every minute dealing with companies that post jobs just to get an idea about the market or look for people who don’t know their worth, dealing with HR who won’t return their calls, etc. along with making decisions like “gas bill or electric bill this month”? I’m sorry they don’t devote their time to deciding what will please some future recruiter and not have them viewed, Ron Paul-style, as some shifty layabout who isn’t out there “creating jobs” like millionaires do. The irony is that corporate HR and their automated resume scanning systems will pass over anyone who’s taken these courses because they won’t have a “real” degree and credentials are valued over demonstrable knowledge, experience or achievements in a field.

Elsewhere in the Comments other posters and I deal with this problem of robo resume scanning. I feel your pain. And you have a strong point. A very strong point. However, alternate authentication tools are in place already (see my article on the Certified Business Laureate). It will take time, but the acceptance of alternate certification and skills-based resumes (backed by alternate authentication) will come. In fact, a new breed of HR person will recognize this change and, using the very principles made famous by the Oakland A’s in discovering hidden talent (see “Moneyball”), find quality workers overlooked by standard HR professionals. It’s about competitive advantage at a reasonable price. And the fact is those with demonstrable skill sets, verified in non-traditional ways, are going to cost less.

I agree Jood42. I didn’t care about school or education when I was younger but at the age of 35 I started a baccalaureate and finished with a master degree. My undergrad was on a campus and my grad was online. The online kicked my butt because my professors were tough. You gotta research these schools and classes. While I run a non profit, fight fire and saves lives as paramedic/firefighter in a major metropolis, minister in church, raise 4 kids and stay married I can truly say, thank God for online classes. I don’t have time to take classes that are not going to beneficial to getting me to the next level. Show them to me first!